As Michael Lamm left off with part one of this story of how the 1959 GM designs came to be, Harley Earl had yet to return from Europe to see what his designers were up to. His response to the designs, as Michael wrote in part 2 in SIA #126, November 1991, helped define his legacy and led to what some consider the most stunning cars of the late 1950s.

I wasn’t aware that the 1957 Chrysler/dodge/Plymouth designs had set GM’s studios into such a tizzy. As excessive as GM’s ’59 designs were, they’re great examples of what can be done when you have someone like Harley Earl behind you. Would that we had this sort of competition and a bit of madness today; everything is safely inoffensive, uncreative and banal.

Chev and Pontiac were done in right hand drive and some were assembled in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Belgium from Canadian kits (lower Commonwealth import duty). I believe Oshawa and Tarrytown (RIP) did the fully assembled cars. Chev and Pontiac shared a RHD version of the Chev dash for ’59 and ’60.